OK, here's my recipe for never fail Cranberry sauce - it's rather tart but not unplesantly so:


Dave'sWife's Never Fail Cranberry Sauce
Makes 2 generous quarts


Ingredients

* 12 ounce can frozen Orange Juice Concentrate (with pulp is possible)
*1 cup filtered water
*Zest of 2 lemons plus the juice of one of those lemons
*4 bags fresh cranberries (I buy Ocean Spray bags, I'll see if I can come back with the precise size of those bags)
*2 cups Frozen wild blueberries (the little ones)
*2 cups castor sugar (Superfine white sugar)
*1 package of fruit pectin - the regular kind (not the freezer jam kind)
*Spices - I use liberal amounts of Cinnamon along with a teaspoon of both Allspice and Mace. By liberal amounts I mean a tablespoon or two.
*1 6 ounce package of Cranberry Jell-O gelatine dissolved in 1 and 1/4 cups of very hot water

Method:

Wash the cranberries in a colander, picking out anty stones, stems or rotten berries. Remove under-ripe berries or berries that popped their skins. Set aside. Zest your lemons and juice one of the lemons. Set the juice and zezt aside together in a small custard cup or ingredient dish.

In a large non-reactive stock pot, heat the OJ concentrate and water, bringing to a boil. When boiling, add in all the cranberries and the 2 cups of frozen blueberries and bring back to a boil. When boiling add in the Lemon Zest and juice. Reduce heat to a medium and wait for the berried to begin to pop their skins. When this has happened, add in the sugar, the pectin and the spices. Stir well to dissolve the sugar and pectin. Simmer until the berries are soft and all the skins have popped - about 10 minutes or so. Add in the Cranberry Jell-O dissolved in water and turn the heat back up to high. Aloow to come to a boil again and then turn heat down to simmer.

Allow the mixutre to simmer as long as it takes to get to the thickness you like. I like mine very very thick so I let mine simmer on a medium to low heat for at least 30 minutes - more if necessary. When berry mixture is to the thickness of your liking, remove from heat, cover and let cool down for 30 minutes.

At this point you have a choice. You can leave the sauce as is (chunky) or you can push it through a sieve for smooth sauce. My experience has been that you get a better gelled suace by pushing it through a sieve and removing the skins.

I push the mixture through a sieve (or a colander if you have no sieve) with a wooden spoon in batches. Be sure to scrape it against the sieve as hard as you can until all that is left is dry skins of the berries. You want to get every last ounce of sauce!

Once the sauce has been processed through the sieve, you can proceed with regular canning methods. I recommend using pint jars for yourself and half pint jars if giving as gifts.


Cooks Notes:

If you like spicey cranberry sauce, you can add chili flakes and white pepper.

This sauce is also good if you add 3 medium thinly sliced vidalia onions to the cranberries and blueberries as they cooking.

********************************


I hope you enjoy this recipe. The secret is the addition of the pectin and Jell-O. That's what helps the sauce set up well. it will not be jellied like the kind you get in a can but it should be substantially thicker than most homemade cranberry sauces. You may always reduce the amounts of water if you like to try and get an even thicker sauce.